Ritual of the Past
by Songbird's Desk
Summary: Harry's in class when he's unexpectedly dragged away. When he wakes, he's not too pleased with finding he's in the past due to a Summoning Ritual...


Harry groaned as he landed on a stone floor with a thump. He'd been in the middle of a 7th year Charms lesson when he'd felt a similar tug to a portkey, and vanished from Professor Flitwick's class to land on a cold stone floor.

Cautiously, Harry cracked an eye open, and promptly closed it again with another groan. "This is so not happening." He muttered.

"Um, hello?" A gentle female voice called out. "Are you alright?"

"What do you think?" Harry snapped.

"Hey! Watch how you speak to my girlfriend, mister!" A male's voice intensified the pounding in Harry's head. Harry let out a silent snarl.

"Now, you were summoned here in order to help us defeat the Dark Lord-"

"Let me guess. Voldemort, huh?" Harry sat up, rubbing his forehead. He peered up at the man standing before him. "Honestly, Headmaster, you should-" He abrubtly cut off. "Hang on, did you say summoning?" The group of seven standing in a circle around him nodded. "As in, a summoning ritual?" Another round of nodding heads. "Idiots." Harry snarled, climbing to his feet. "What limits did you put on it?"

A young woman with sandy blonde hair blinked. "Limits?"

"Yes, limits!" Harry paused. "Please tell me you put limits on it?" There were blank looking faces before him. "I repeat myself. IDIOTS!" He roared. "Did you not think to put limits on the ritual?"

"But…but there wasn't a need to!" A red-headed woman stuttered out.

"Wasn't. A. Need. To." Harry rubbed his temples. "Tell me what you said." The group looked at one another worriedly. "Don't worry, it won't perform another summoning. The circle's broken," He gestured to the salt that had been pushed out of a circle shape. "and the moon's gone." He gestured to the open window, where the group could see that the moon had gone behind a cloud.

"Merlin , nos scisco vos voco nos unus quisnam mos evinco Atrum Senior Voldemort , quod servo nos totus ex obscurum." The dark haired male reluctantly told him.

"Merlin, we ask you to summon us one who will defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort, and save us all from darkness. Correct?" Harry quickly translated. The group nodded. "You didn't put any limits on it." Harry sat down with another groan.

"We didn't need to, did we?" A brunette male asked worriedly.

"Yes, you bloody well did!" Harry glared at Dumbledore. "You're an idiot for not knowing that." He looked at the others. "You always need to put limits on a summoning ritual. You've just pulled me from 20 years in the future."

"But, that's not possible! The ritual was meant to pull someone from our time!" Another black-haired male cried, who had, up until that point, been silent.

"You didn't specify that in the ritual." Harry pointed out. "Congratulations. You've just managed to make a paradox. I can't help you."

"What do you mean, you can't help us?! We summoned you to help us! You have to!" The second brunette cried.

"I FUCKING WELL CAN'T!" Harry roared, jumping to his feet. "If I help you, I won't get born, which means I can't be summoned back in time, which means YOU'RE SCREWED!" Harry closed his eyes and went back to rubbing his temples. "You should've placed limits on the ritual, like 'from this generation and previous ones'. What's worse is that I CAN'T BLOODY WELL GO HOME!"

"Yes you can. You just need a time turner." The blonde piped up.

"No. The future is not set like the past. It isn't decided upon until the present. Oh, yeah sure, we have prophecies." Harry waved a hand absently. "But, they only tell us vague major events. They don't tell us when, what order they go in, nothing! Everything between those events fluctuates until the present hits it." Harry took a deep breath. "Which means that while you can go back in time, you cannot go forward. Thank you for ruining my life."

The group blinked before the first brunette spoke. "But we didn't mean to! We didn't know we had to set limits-"

"Well you should have researched these fucking rituals better, shouldn't you?!" Harry roared, turning to the brunette.

"How old are you?" Harry blinked and looked at the Headmaster. "How old are you? You don't look like you could take on the Dark Lord."

Harry gave a dry laugh. "My dear Headmaster, I'm more powerful than yourself. And I'm seventeen, for your information." He looked about, studying the room. "Huh. We're at Hogwarts. If you don't mind, I'm going to go and sleep for a day before figuring out how to fix this mess." He turned to walk to the door.

"Wait!" The first black-haired male leapt forward. "What's your name?"

"Harry." Harry smirked over his shoulder. "Harry Potter." He left.


End file.
